


A Home At The End Of The World

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Background Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse - Freeform, F/M, Future Fic, Hunter is in love with the flawless orphans, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lance Hunter: Amateur Matchmaker, Lance Hunter: professional Skoulson shipper, Male-Female Friendship, POV Lance Hunter, Safehouses, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 15:50:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3656079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hunter is going to make sure these two get out of here alive if it's the last thing he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Home At The End Of The World

 

 

"Skye... you're alive," Coulson mutters, lifting his bloodied hands towards the girl as if she were some religious icon.

Jesus, look at him, how long did the bastards keep him locked like this?

"Skye. You're. Alive."

Like they're the only words he remembers.

Hunter gets it, though – and they did hear Skye was dead, but they also heard Coulson was too. But there's no time.

Skye as well, seems like she is going to have some kind of meltdown, too caught up in the relief of Coulson being alive that she hasn't noticed the state of him yet. Hunter would like to keep it that way. He needs Skye to be focused and at full force to escape this place.

"Very touching reunion, you guys," he says, checking the cell door. "But we need to get going. _Now_."

Skye blasts them out of there while Hunter slips one arm under Coulson's shoulder and tries to get him to walk.

The last thing he knows about the A Team is a big explosion on the other side of the building and May telling him through the comms to lie low until she comes find them, and then he's not sure how but he's driving them out of danger, heading for the nearest possible refuge that feels safe, with Coulson passed out in the back seat, and Skye with a gun in one hand (as if Skye needed a gun these days) and Coulson's head tucked under the other, resting on her knees.

Somehow Hunter gets them into safety.

He wonders if Bobbi made it out alive.

Anyone's guess, really.

 

+

 

The evening closes in and Hunter drives for hours and has only one thing in mind: he has to save them. He has to come through for Skye and Coulson. That's the only thing that matters. He doesn't know if his other teammates are alive, there's nothing he can do for them from here. Hunter hasn't done much good in his life, when it comes down to it, not in the grand scheme of things. He knows he's not a hero. But he _will_ see these two to safety if it's the last thing he does. 

Skye doesn't even ask where they are going.

She's either too preoccupied with Coulson's state right now, or she trusts Hunter implicitly. It'd be nice if it were the latter.

 

+

 

He wishes he had kept the place in better shape. But to be honest he never thought he'd have to use it. A safehouse not even Bobbi knows about. A last resort kind of deal. Hunter had almost forgotten about it. Virtually, until tonight. Until he had to pull his boss from the fire and the falling rocks, and suddenly this place was the only thing he could think of. Always have an exit strategy, Izzy told him that. Well, she'd be proud. He doesn't know about tomorrow but tonight that exit strategy has saved their lives.

It's pitch dark when they get there, leaving the car a mile down the path just in case, and he and Skye maneuver Coulson into the one bed the best they can before going outside to switch on the power.

Skye is hesitant to even leave Coulson alone in the room for a couple of minutes, like if he gets out of her sight something bad might happened to him. Something _worse_ , that is. Like if she tears her eyes from him he's going to stop breathing or something.

Hunter sends her to secure the perimeter – he'd do it but if there's trouble Skye is a lot stronger – while he checks Coulson's state, now that they are not dragging him away from danger.

Hunter does what he can about the injuries – trying not to dwell too much on what they mean, specially the horrorshow on his fingers – but he's no doctor. Coulson comes around for a moment, so he can pliantly comply to Hunter's attentions, and Hunter is relieved, he's never applied first aid to an unconscious guy. Skye finds some painkillers in the bathroom cabinet.

"What happens when drugs expire?" she asks. "Do they become more potent or less?"

"I'd say less, right? It's only logical. How long ago did that one expire?"

Skye hands him the bottle. "Three months back."

"Oh, I think we're safe."

She seems unconvinced – they are not going to _poison_ the bossman, Hunter is completely sure of that – but she goes along with it because Coulson is quietly writhing from the pain now. Getting him to swallow the pills is a bit trickier, he thrashes in bed like a scared kid, worn out from pain and isolation. But he finally settles when the painkillers start working their out-of-date magic. 

Hunter wonders if he can drag Skye out of the room. He wraps his hand around her elbow.

"Come on, let him get some rest, it'll be fine."

And it's weird that Skye is the one in need of guideance, when she's normally bossing everybody around in missions. Yes, he's noticed. She's a bossy one. It's almost satisfying, being able to tell her what to do, if it wasn't for the fact that she looks so upset.

Hunter is an easygoing guy, he knows it, he's always considered it an advantage. He finds no good comes out of thinking the worst. They've done whatever they could, and the rest is up to luck and the fact that the guy is strong. Why wallow in angst. There are practical things to think about.

There's not much in here – he hasn't used this place in a couple of years, and he hasn't been keeping tabs, it was just an _in case_ safehouse – except for some cans of food, bottles of water and yes, beer.

"I think I'll get started on that," Hunter says, looking for the bottle opener in the drawers.

Skye makes no comment. She looks out of it. Spooked and pale.

Hunter grabs a beer for her as well.

"Here."

"I don't think that's safe," she says. She's still ready for a fight.

"I'm not saying we get drunk on the job," Hunter explains. He's offended, by the way. "But you need something to bring the adrenaline down, or you'll exhaust yourself, and that's dangerous."

Skye looks at him, unconvinced, but she takes the bottle, and she sits on the small, has-seen-better-days leather couch. Hunter sits by her side, but on the floor, taking the case of beer with him. Yes, it's warm, but it's very good beer. At least two years ago he had the presence of mind to stock on the good stuff. Just because you're running from your enemies it doesn't mean you have to settle for cheap beer, that's Hunter's motto.

"You think the others are alive?" Skye asks.

He can tell she preemptively blames herself for what might have happened. But it was the right call, they couldn't let Hydra get a hold of all those resources.

"I think it will take more than Hydra teaming up with faux!SHIELD to kill Agent May, that's what I believe."

"All those agents..." Skye goes on. "They thought they were doing the right thing."

"And they'll be fine," Hunter tells her. "They'll heal."

"If they're alive."

"They are. Bobbi and Mack made sure of that."

Skye is thinking but doesn't say: Bobbi and Mack could be dead as well. But Hunter is an optimist, he doesn't think they are.

Skye finally takes a swing at her beer – she's not bad at it, the poise, and Hunter is a bit surprised. It makes him curious about her. She doesn't drink much, not with him and the team, anyway. But maybe tonight is some kind of exception. Desperate times and all that.

They drink in silence for what it seems to him a long, long time.

Skye breaks it.

"Coulson said something to me."

Hunter lifts his head towards her, distracted. "Uh?"

"Back in the car. While you drove us here. He said something to me... but I think he might have just been delirious."

"Said _something_? What? Like a last minute declaration of love?"

Skye gives him a stare.

Hunter feels tempted to straight-man the whole thing with some interjection learned too long ago from BBC sitcoms, something like "blimey!". Instead he smiles fondly, trying not to laugh at Skye – he learned that lesson at some point, she's not to be laughed at. And that was before she got scary earth-shaking powers! Somehow the women in his life are not to teased.

"Well, good for the Director," he says instead, casually, which is apt, because no surprise there, but he raises his bottle, because they deserve it.

" _Hunter_."

"What? I mean it. You're a smashing lady, why not."

"I don't think he really meant it."

Cautious, guarded Skye. Always. Hunter pities her; so young, so bloody terrified.

When he met Skye she was a grumpy little thing, and then he understood the reason.

"Hunter," she calls. "You're bleeding."

He looks at her, dumb. Skye gestures towards the left side of his head. A split eyebrow. He hadn't noticed. Well, he didn't notice many things that had happened back there.

"Sit on the couch, I'll go grab the kit," Skye orders.

And with her it's _orders_ , but Hunter still protests. "It's okay, it's just a scratch." Skye glares at him. "Okay, okay."

He crawls up the couch. That girl's scary.

Skye takes the first aid kit and sits on her knees on the couch, cleaning up the area. Hunter thinks he'd really like a shower at this point, but he's too tired for that.

"You know you were great back there, don't you?" Skye says as she works on him. "You saved our necks."

Somehow hearing that feels like being complimented by his sixth form teacher.

"Couldn't let Coulson down," Hunter states, very simply. "He's the first guy who thought I was worth a shot in a long while. That sort of faith, you pay back."

"I know what you mean," Skye says, with surpisingly earnestness. If she weren't so earthy she would be very mysterious. Hunter never knew what Coulson did for her anyway, if there is some kind of good faith she has to pay back or just natural inclination or both. The girl has Hunter's face in his hands and he still doesn't know much about her, after almost a year.

Hunter shrugs. It's more than owing a debt, he loves the guy. Hunter knows how to love people, the handful of people he does love. Coulson and this strange subordinate of his among them. Some days it's like Coulson is his father – if Hunter's father hadn't been a useless drunk rotting away in a Bradford council state. Other days it's like a kid, a son, Hunter has to look out for, because he can't look after himself. And out of the people in his life lately Coulson was the one who hadn't been straight lying to his face for ages. Respect.

Skye finishes with the eyebrow.

"All patched up," she says, voice boosted by an attempt at optimism in the long dark night. 

"Well, much obliged, doctor," Hunter says, standing up from the couch. "I think this requires another beer."

Skye gives him a sideways look but the nods, accepting a second round.

Two beers are not going to do much for him but he enjoys the company.

"This is the part where we would tell each other our life stories, but of course you've read my file," Hunter says with a big gulp. It is a bit unfair. "I haven't read yours."

Skye snorts.

"You wouldn't like my life story, anyway."

There's more to that, and to the way Skye knocks back the bottle.

"What about you?" he asks.

"What?"

"The Director said something to you back in the car. Would you respond in a likewise manner if he were to repeat it?"

He asks because there's a chance he might have misunderstood the whole situation. It has happened before. _It's more complicated than you think_ , Bobbi had told him when Hunter brought up the subject in joking. But Bobbi didn't know Skye, she wasn't there those first months of Hunter's tenure, the months of Coulson being an android with her. But Bobbi knew Coulson, and well – not that well, it turned out, but personally, at least. She had said that even if Hunter were right – and she wasn't saying Hunter was right, Bobbi was insistent on clarifying this, Hunter remembers that day, that morning in her bunk, sweaty and sex-happy and he had been feeling romantic enough to talk it with her – Coulson wasn't the kind of guy who would do anything of the sort, even if he wanted. 

But now here they are and there's chaos and destruction and broken bones and superpowers, who knows. Coulson might just be that kind of guy. If being that kind of guy means being honest, then it's not that bad.

Of course that doesn't account for what Skye thinks.

And she is not saying anything. She's not Fitz, she's not going to have a heart-to-heart about impossible loves just because Hunter has pushed a couple of bottles of beer her way.

Instead she drops her gaze. He wonders if she'll need another drink. God knows he does. _Never get smashed in a safehouse_. Bobbi's words of wisdom. Though she herself had broken that rule one night in Columbus, Ohio, he remembers well. Okay, okay, Bob, I'll be good, Hunter thinks. He has to be. Not for himself, but for Skye and Coulson.

Skye still hasn't answered the question.

"Did you see his fingers?" she asks, the quiet terror noticeably rasping her throat.

Hunter nods. "He'll be fine."

And he will be fine, more or less, but there's no point in brutal honesty right now. They are alive. Yes, he took a look at Coulson's fingers and made the quick calculation that he'd probably want to learn how to shoot with his left hand, and that might take a while, if ever. But being alive, that's the thing. That's what they should all focus on tonight. The man is a fighter, he won't be stopped by something like a couple of fingers.

"They tortured him," Skye says. "Didn't they?"

"Hey now. The Director might not look like it but he's pretty tough," he answers, hoping levity does the trick because this expression on Skye's face right now? It could make a world-weary man like Hunter cry.

"It's not that," she says. "But thinking about him being in pain..."

One: Okay, no more beers for the lady.

Two: That answers his previous question.

He tries to be supportive. Skye is a mate.

"For the record," he tells her, "whatever Coulson said back in the car, I don't think he was delirious. Not _that_ delirious, anyway."

Skye looks down at her hands, still wearing those gloves of hers that help her direct the vibrations, or something like that.

"A lot has changed for me this past year," she says, tone like Hunter is not even in the room. "But in the whole world... Coulson's still my one person, he's my guy."

"That's nice," Hunter mumbles. Honest, but a little envious. He remembers the feeling, having your _person_ , and having that person think you're it, too.

But Skye's voice sounds slurred and not from alcohol, from exhaustion. She wouldn't have said something like that if she wasn't knackered. The girl keeps her cards very close to her heart.

"You should rest," Hunter says. "I'll take the first watch, you take the couch."

He watches Skye bite the inside of her cheek, throwing a glance back towards the bedroom.

"I think I'm gonna go sit with him," she says.

Of course she wants to do that.

Sentimental people are so predictable. Hunter should know, he's one of them.

"Coulson's not going in wake up in ages," he tells her. "The stuff we gave him, he's out of it."

"Yeah, I know." An effort to make her voice sound reasonable. "I still think I'm gonna go in."

Hunter shrugs. No use arguing, and he wouldn't want to.

He's still going to take the first watch.

 

+

 

"What are you doing?" Skye asks.

She approaches Hunter as he's considering whether to kill the lights, dawn is here already. But he's busy cooking right now. 

"It's called breakfast?" he replies.

Skye scrunches her face. "It looks awful."

"Well..."

Beans on toast. Without the toast.

He wishes Idaho was here.

He wishes he took better care of his safehouses and they had anything other than canned goods and instant coffee around. He wishes Agent May would hurry up and call on the damned satellite phone.

He takes a good look at his companion. Skye looks like shit. She might have looked like that yesterday, he wouldn't know. Her eyes are red and she couldn't have gotten that much sleep – some heartwarming scene of her dozing off on the pillow, right next to Coulson, surely, Hunter regrets not having taken a peek.

But she's taken off her gloves and the first layer of her combat suit, looking more like a human now, dark rings under the eyes and scratches all over her arms and all.

"You tired from holding the director's hand all night?" he asks.

A shadow passes over Skye's face.

"I'm just tired."

"Why don't you grab some shuteye after breakfast?"

She raises and eyebrow and makes a cute face.

"Why don't I skip breakfast?"

Hunter chuckles. "Your loss."

She gives a concerned look towards the bedroom door before heading for the couch.

"How long are we going to wait for news?" she asks, lying down.

Hunter has been pondering the question while he threw nasty glances at the phone. They are safe here, they could hold off a while. But Coulson is going to want to go back as soon as they can – even sooner, he is not going to care he's in no state to move – and Skye is even more of a restless reckless bastard, so Hunter figures their little house on the prairie idyll is not going to last long.

"Let me worry about that, okay?"

Uncharacteristichally Skye does just that, he lets Hunter worry, and she just shuts her eyes, falling asleep (and heavily, Hunter is going to tease her about the snoring later). He looks at her – she could probably bring whole cities down with her powers, yet she looks small and vulnerable right now. There's not a blanket or even a throw in sight so Hunter takes his windbreaker and covers her body with it, hoping it's enough.

Hoping worrying is enough.

 

+

 

Coulson is already awake when he comes in with the food.

Breakfast in bed, like he were a girlfriend of Hunter's and not his boss.

And if Skye looks like shit, well, Coulson is something out of a nightmare.

"That bad, uh?" Coulson catches his expression.

Hunter leaves the tray to one side, sitting by the bed.

"Considering you are supposed to be dead," he tells him, "this is an obvious improvement."

The Director nods, a bit pensive. He looks like shit but at least there's that softness in his eyes – Hunter will always remember that's what drew him to man, and what made him think he could be manipulated.

"I keep doing that," Coulson is saying. "Not being dead when I'm supposed to."

"No one is complaining, sir."

"Yeah, but sometimes luck has to run out."

"Maybe, but not today," Hunter states. He takes a better look at the guy, now that it's day. "Can you see with that eye?"

"Yes, actually I can. It doesn't even hurt too much."

Well, he's pretty non-chalant about it, probably because he can't see it himself. Some vein must have... and ugh, gross, all red.

"Because it looks awful."

Coulson frowns. "You and May should give pep talks together. You'd make a career out of it."

Hunter can already see it: Lance and Melinda, motivational speakers. If this whole saving-the-world thing doesn't work...

"Well, it's good to see you're feeling better."

Everything he knows about being an annoying big brother type he's learnt from Mack. And Mack would be proud, he's being an absolute pest to both Skye and Coulson.

That seems to hit a nerve, though, something Hunter hadn't wanted.

" _Better_ as opposed to what?"

"We'd better get the head doctor to talk to you about those," Hunter says, gesturing towards Coulson's bandaged hands.

He knows he's crossing a line, and his experience has taught him every man and woman deals with that kind of stuff in their own way and there's no point in forcing the issue. 

"Yeah."

Coulson doesn't sound unreceptive or ashamed or guilty or any of that bullshit Hunter has seen in his army buddies, so that's a good sign.

"It might have been a good thing that I had nothing to tell them," Coulson adds.

Hunter doubts that. Coulson might look soft but he's pretty tough.

"Couple of weeks, you'll be like new."

"You know, there are rules against subordinates patronizing his superiors," Coulson warns him.

"Are there? Good thing I'm not the type to follow rules."

But he can't charm his way out of everything.

He watches Coulson lift his right hand. "I'm not new to this, Hunter. I know what this means."

"You'll have plenty of time to worry about that, mate. For now we just have to get out of here."

"And how's that going?" the Director asks. "May securing an extraction?"

Hunter makes a non-committal noise. He's sure at some point Agent May will do just that.

For now it's crappy food and good company.

Coulson touches his bandaged hand to his left shoulder. That's another thing, and fortunately it's just a minor injury. His left hand is in much better shape. Coulson can move it but not his left shoulder.

"I remember you setting it last night?" Coulson says.

"Sorry, I needed you to be awake for that. I hope that didn't hurt my chances of a promotion."

The man shakes his head slightly. Hunter figures out that after torture a dislocated shoulder is not that much.

"Which brings me to the next part of the question," Hunter says. "I brought you soup. Can you eat?"

Coulson lifts his mangled hand with a hopeless gesture again.

Hunter widens his eyes at him.

"Do I have to... _feed you_?" he asks.

Coulson tilts his head. "Is there any problem?" 

He is looking at him like Hunter's answer to that could make Coulson lose all respect for his subordinate.

It's not the – it's not any misguided notions of masculinity at play here. Hunter has done this for teammates before. Hell, he even had to help Idaho shower once. He has no problem with that. But this is Coulson. It's just funny. He's so... Coulson-like.

"No problem."

He's not able to eat much, anyway, so the awkwardness only lasts three sips of soup. Hunter hopes it's enough to help him hill.

"I have canned peaches," he tells Coulson, enticingly.

"Maybe later."

He sees the frown.

"What?" Hunter asks.

It takes Coulson a moment to answer, as if he hadn't quite heard.

"Was Skye here last night?" he asks.

Hunter smiles at the question.

"Was she in here? Yes, she spent the night right by your side, like a guardian angel."

"Uh."

"Why do you ask?"

"I must have been out of it," Coulson says, looking all pensive once more and like he's trying hard to remember. "I have this feeling she was talking to me at some point."

Oh Hunter has no doubt of that. And after that couple of beers she was pretty worked up. But it grabs his interest, exactly what Coulson heard.

"Why? What did she say?"

Again Coulson pauses for a long time before replying. It might be the painkillers. It might be something else.

He shakes his head. "I was probably just dreaming it. That's all."

Another frown, different this time.

"No, actually there has been no word from the team, sir," Hunter says. "But don't worry. May said to lie low. I bet they're doing just that."

"Are you sure no one knows about this place?"

"Skye asked the same thing. _I'm sure_."

"Not even Bobbi?"

"If you're questioning Bob's loyalties, after everything that's happened –"

Coulson shakes his head. "Of course I'm not."

"Because I wouldn't exactly blame you," Hunter jokes.

It gains him a weak smile. It's better to joke than to think about what Bobbi has gone through in the last months.

God, he really hopes she made it out alive somehow.

"I'm just..." Coulson starts.

"Overthinking stuff? Yeah, you do that. Less thinking, more resting. I'll come back with the peaches in a while."

"But I don't want the peaches," Coulson whines.

 

+

 

Hunter is not sure what he's done wrong this time.

One moment he's cleaning up the kitchen from his sad attempts at culinary excellence and greeting Skye who has just come back from the dark, thick woods around the cabin and next thing he knows Skye is hugging him and crying her heart out into Hunter's chest. Okay, not her heart out, more like quiet tragic little sobs, but for Skye it's the same.

"No, no, no, sweetheart," Hunter says, Skye's hair in his mouth. "Don't cry. The worst part of over. The bad part – that was yesterday. That was what you did, with the bringing down doors and walls. _That_ was the hard bit. From now on it's easy."

He's trying to find something comforting to say. He's not used to having pretty girls pressed against him crying. Not even Bobbi. He has cried on her shoulder more than the other way around. And this is Skye – this girl is tough. This is very alarming. But probably emotionally healthy for her. He tries to extricate one arm from her embrace to stroke her hair. Struggling to find something to say Hunter tries for the heart of the matter, pun intended.

"We rescued him, okay? We found him," he goes on. "You found him. And he's – he's fine. He's going to be fine. He's snoring back there. _Snoring_." A faint chuckle torn from Skye's throat. Good. And just Hunter's luck. He has a beautiful lady in his arms and it's all because she's in love with some other bloke. That's really like him. He keeps talking. "His head, that's the important bit, he's as lucid and annoyingly sensible as ever. And the fingers will heal. Sure, he'll have for hold off on those piano concertos of his for a while but..."

This time it's something between a chuckle and a sob, but it's loud and it sounds good and when Skye pulls back from the hug there's an embarrassed but growing smile on her face. Much better.

"Sorry," she mutters.

"No judgeent from me. I cry if a movie has an animal in it. It does have to die, it just has to be in the movie."

There's something to be said for being the goofy one. It makes girls smile.

And hey, he doesn't mind emotional outbursts. He likes them. It was just his luck that he's surrounded himself with impenetrable arseholes. After years with Bobbi he just had to end up in a team with the likes of Agent May, Coulson and Skye. He misses Hartley – Izzy often got emotional and boorish when she drank. Which reminds him, maybe he should have a beer for this.

But Skye is already pulling back, gathering herself and hiding behind the wall she always does. 

 

+

 

He tries to keep himself busy the next few hours. Cleaning some more – what for, he has no idea – and dropping in on Coulson every few minutes. Sometimes he's sleeping, sometimes he's just bored, already fidgety and wanting to go back, pressing Hunter to make the decision and get them out of here.

Skye, restless in her own way, and amazingly enough _avoiding_ going in to see Coulson, does her rounds outside.

Hunter knows they are sitting ducks in here, if anyone knew where the ducks are, of course. He's going to give himself until the morning and then he'll drive them back. With luck, even if they are being tailed, they can simply give themselves up to the US government. At least they'd be alive.

Maybe he should have done that from the beginning, just drive Coulson to the nearest hospital. But without knowing if Hydra had fallen or at least fallen back a bit, he couldn't do that. Moving the boss once was reckless enough. Moving him again in this state would be murder. He will give it tonight and if the team doesn't call then it's back to civilization, whatever civilization they might b

Skye's restlessness is driving him bonkers, on the other hand.

"Why do you have gardening magazines here?" she asks, angrily flicking through the pages.

"You know, you could take this time and talk to Coulson, really talk to him."

"About what?" 

She doesn't lift her gaze, doesn't flinch. She's good, but unfortunately for her Bobbi taught him a couple of things about profiling.

"He's been asking if you talked to him last night."

That makes her look. "He was unconscious. I thought..."

"I think _he was_. I think he heard you anyway."

Skye seems to think about it.

"I didn't mean..." she starts, then stops.

"Or you could repeat it to him," Hunter offers. "An idea. No?"

"What's gotten into you?" Skye asks.

"I used to think Coulson hated you," he says, remembering those early days with fondness. He had been simply a merc then, Coulson had been just a nice suit Hartley knew, Skye had been a sexy but unfriendly girl, and Bobbi wasn't back in his life yet. "That was my first impression of the whole thing. He never talked to you, he did whatever he could to you, he was sharp with you."

"I remember," Skye mutters, like it still hurts.

She had been miserable then, that's Hunter's point. And maybe he's naive but Skye is his friend – as it turns out one of his best friends. He'd rather see her happy than miserable. And the whole what-he-said-in-the-car what-she-said-last-night thing is absurd even for him, and he loves dinner theatre.

"Look I'm not trying to meddle," he tells Skye.

" _You're not_?"

"I'm your senior agent."

"No, actually I'm your senior agent."

Hunter thinks about it. Yeah she's right. "Well, I'm your senior."

"Oh sure, you're so knowledgable and–"

"We almost died yesterday!" Hunter interrupts. "It's a miracle we are here right now. A miracle. He deserves to know. You do too. If you don't already."

He's frustrated by the situation, being holed up here – there's a reason why he doesn't do safehouses. There's a reason you should never do them with people like Skye and Coulson, they're just too intense. But he can't imagine that Skye doesn't know. She does, doesn't it? Guys are dumb, so Coulson has his excuse there, but she doesn't.

And if he had the chance, if Bobbi were here, for example...

Skye fixes him a very hard look.

"Hunter," she says. That tone. Wow. Scary. "Stay in your lane."

"I was just trying to help," he protests.

"I don't need that sort of help."

She goes back to not reading the magazine.

Hunter watches her for a bit.

"Now what?" she asks.

"I know I have a big mouth for someone whose wife pulled a gun on him just yesterday but –"

"She wasn't herself," Skye tells him.

Hunter smiles at her unflinching rectitude. She can't even take a joke.

"I know that," he says. "Just saying. I know I'm not an inspiration to anyone."

Skye puts the magazine away, throwing her head back and closing her eyes. She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. It's the first time today she lets him see just how exhausted she is. Hunter sits by her side, waiting for her to open her eyes again. When she does she turns her head towards him, giving him a tiny sad smile.

"The last time I saw Coulson, before all this, he promised we'd see each other in a couple of days," she tells him. 

Hunter raises his eyebrows.

That hadn't worked out at all.

All the more reason, he wants to point out. But he has the feeling Skye already knows that.

 

+

 

He didn't mean to walk in on them he swears. He just wanted to check up on Coulson. He swears. He had no idea Skye took his advice.

And well, he wanted to share the good news, tell them May had just called and everyone was safe and the good guys won and they were on their way to pick the three of them up. That's the sort of good news one would think can't wait. The kind of good news one wouldn't imagine upstaged by – well, a different kind of good news.

Hunter would at least have knocked if he knew he was going to find the Director of SHIELD and his trusted subordinate making out on the bed.

And hey, for a guy with a broken hand Coulson sure is holding on to that girl tightly, his right arm smootly wrapped around Skye's back as she attacks his mouth like it's the end of the world.

"Hey, hey, _hey_ ," Hunter calls, like he's about to admonish them for bad behaviour.

Coulson and Skye break apart with an audible smacking noise where their mouths separate. And it's pretty comical, not just that sound or Coulson's idiot face right now, but the way Skye turns around to face Hunter while remaining comfortably resting on Coulson's lap – well, not exactly _on_ his lap, because he's injured, but to all effects and purposes...

"This isn't what it looks like," Skye declares. Couldn't she think of a better cliche?

"It looks remarkably like it," Hunter replies, feigning innocence.

"Skye was just..." Coulson tries, but comes up empty.

His cheeks are flushed. Aw, young love. But he does look better, healthier. There's no medicine like – what the hell is that Skye's hand on Coulson's groing? And she hasn't had the decency to remove it when Hunter came in?

"I was... actually..." now it's Skye's turn to make a fool of herself.

"She was just checking my injuries," Coulson says, helpful.

They are not very good at this, are they.

Hunter thinks he'll have some fun.

"Why, Director, I had no idea someone had broken your _mouth_."

Coulson narrows his eyes at Hunter, looking more like himself than he's done in the last twenty hours.

"Agent Hunter," he says. That tone. Hunter wonders if Skye picked it up from Coulson or the other way around.

Okay, maybe he won't have some fun. These guys are scary.

Still, he feels bad about cutting their moment short. He never thought of himself as a cockblocker before – okay there was that one time in Valencia with Mack and that waiter but let's be fair, Mack could do better.

"Well, lovebirds, I'm afraid you have to cut your honeymoon short," he says. "May has arranged an extraction in two hours."

"Is everyone okay?" Skye asks immediately.

It amazing she has the focus to ask anything with the way she's basically sitting in Coulson's lap, and his arm still half-thrown around her, like Hunter is not even in the room.

"A miracle," Hunter tells them. "They're all right. Fitz broke his arm. Again. He was very adamant that I'd tell you the _again_ part."

"Everybody got out?" Coulson asks, still skeptic.

He wasn't really conscious during the team's daring escape, so Hunter guesses he was just assuming the worst.

"Thanks to you frenemy General Talbot," Hunter mentions. "He ended up lending a hand."

" _Brigadier_ General Talbot, please," Coulson corrects him.

He seems to be in good spirits.

Not just the good news, but Hunter guesses he himself would be in good spirits if he had had the tongue of a hot lady down his throat a couple of minutes ago.

"So you have two hours until May arrives," he reminds them, backing off towards the door. "Don't go too crazy."

"It's not like that," Skye says, lame.

"Yeah, I've heard that one before, darling," Hunter tells her.

He thinks Skye –scourge of Hydra, actual force of nature, practically a superhero– might be blushing.

Hunter leaves them to it, discreetly slipping out of the room and shutting the door behind him. But not fast enough that he doesn't catch Skye asking Coulson why the hell his mouth tastes like peaches.

 

+

 

A military hospital is an idea that made Coulson groan but Hunter is used to these places, he feels at home, and Talbot has been instrumental on the whole thing, they couldn't really say no, thanks, we'd rather let our Director bleed out on the street.

Of course he very much doubts the doctors and Simmons herself are going to be able to keep Coulson here longer than another day. If so. He's an awful, awful patient. It took May's and Skye's violent (and weirdly realistic) threats to get him stop complaning.

It's not like they have great alternatives right now.

A military hospital is just as good or bad as anywhere else.

There's no home to go back to, it's gone.

Coulson doesn't seem to mind, or at least that's what it looks like from where Hunter is, the other side of the impromptu emergency room, sitting in a gurney far from the earshot of the Director and Skye

Skye probably needs some more sleep but prying her away from Coulson right now would probably prove more difficult than dragging a pitbull away from a steak. Hunter knows, he used to have one, a pitbull, a beautiful thing called Thunder. That dog had nothing on their Skye.

"Leave them alone," Bobbi says, coming down the hallway. "Stop watching, perv."

"Hey, I saved their lives. I'm just protecting my investement."

She hands him a paper cup.

"Thanks," Hunter says.

She looks good, obviously her ordeal had been slightly less dramatic than his and Skye's.

Bobbi looks at them too, for all her complaining about Hunter's voyeurism. She gets this expression on her face, he knows it well. She is trying to solve some puzzle.

At some point she must have left it alone, whatever she was thinking, because she turns to Hunter and smiles at him with as much cheerfulness as Bob would allow herself in these circumstances.

"Our Director seems pretty cheerful after being tortured, permanently incapacitated and losing his base of operations," she comments.

Yeah, there's no home to go back to, thanks for the reminder. No home to go back to other than each other. Hunter has learnt how much that means in the last couple of days, the last few months.

"I'm a gentleman," Hunter says. "I won't divulge how this happiness came to be."

Bobbi snorts, throwing a knowing glance in the general direction of Coulson's bed. Hunter looks too, Skye still engrossed in telling Coulson something, Coulson engrossed in just listening to the girl. Either what Skye is saying is very fascinating or Director Coulson is pretty far gone.

"I don't think anyone around here has any doubt who's responsible for the current condition of our boss," Bobbi says.

It feels good to hear her call Coulson her boss.

"Why, dear, I didn't know you were a romantic."

But Bobbi is not in the mood for joking, it seems.

"What's wrong?"

He knows Bobbi wouldn't tell him if it was something painful. And there's been enough pain in her life lately. No one blames her for what happened with faux!SHIELD, that's not even a question, but it's something that will probably eat away at her for the rest of her life.

"Do you ever get the feeling that you've squandered something good?"

"I hope not. Why do you ask?" She doesn't answer right away. "Wait. Am I that something good? Because I can assure you, I'm not that good."

She doesn't reply.

Hunter feels the weariness of the past couple of days fall on him like a ton of bricks or a curse. He rubs his eyes. Bobbi draws her hand across his back, massaging the spot she knows can make him relax. That feels good. He almost closes his eyes and lets out a purr of relief right there. He can barely believe he's still standing.

"We're not fighters, are we, Hunter?" he hears Bobbi say.

"What do you mean? Because we just walked through hell and we're here. I think that makes us fighters."

"I mean with _us_."

He turns to her, tries his best charming rogue smile. "I like to think we've fought for that, too. And not always with each other."

"But it has never been enough."

" _You_ 're not cheerful."

"Look at Coulson and Skye," Bobbi says, gesturing towards the med area. "All they've gone through. Alien conspiracies. The carving. Skye's powers. Being separated. Coulson getting caught."

"Against all odds, just like the song," Hunter teases.

Well, she's the one who didn't believe him when Hunter insisted there was something there. Now who owes whom twenty american dollars?

"What I'm saying is this – compared to that, we've had it very easy, you and me," Bobbi goes on. "And we've had given up. Over and over. All the chances we got. Squandered."

Hunter gets what she is saying, actually.

He can't say he disagrees. They are both to blame. On the same boat. And still...

"You could have killed me back there, Bob. And you didn't."

"Some people are more suggestionable than others," Bobbi says. "That's what our wonderful messiah said."

"Might be it. Might be somethinng else."

She gives him a glare, like she can't believe he has just said that.

"Like what? The power of love?"

"Hey, don't knock it. I've seen some things in my time."

Bobbi chuckles. Likes it's such an outlandish idea. Maybe it is for them.

The thing is, Hunter thinks, they might have given up on the "us" many times, that he can't deny. But they've never given up on each other.

"Personally I'm a hopeless fool," he tells Bobbi. "So any time you feel like doing it all over again, just give me a call."

She gives him a smile that's sad and encouraging at the same time.

"Why don't we take it one day at a time?" she says. "Today I'm just glad I didn't kill you."

"Me too."

Bobbi smiles, strained but sincere.

And she's right. Maybe that's enough for today.

She touches Hunter's arm in a familiar way, just before she walks away.

Here we go again, Hunter thinks. That damn rollescoaster.

He turns and looks at Coulson and Skye once more. Now it's Coulson's turn to talk, and Skye is listening and nodding, very serious. Coulson still looks at the girl like she's some otherwordly revelation. Hunter knows them well enough to know they are probably plotting SHIELD's next reconstruction, or something equally altrustic and ridiculously idealistic.

They say fools live longer.

If that's true those two are going to outlive them all, Hunter is sure of that. 

He's gonna make sure of that.


End file.
